1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to an apparatus and method for making belt loops from discrete, properly-sized plies of fabric material.
2. Description of Prior Art
Presently, belt loops are made either from fabric material cut from the lay, which must have at least a minimum length to permit machine handling of the material or from a roll of continuous fabric material. Both methods are undesirable since they do not utilize the fabric material to the fullest extent.
Present processes for forming belt loops from fabric material require, for safety and handling reasons, that the material have an oversize length which permits the pliable fabric to be hand-fed into available folding and sewing apparatus. In these processes, the oversized fabric pieces are folded into the desired configuration and then are sewn to form a belt loop blank. The pliable pieces are sequentially passed through the folding and sewing apparatus and each is overlapped onto the preceding and succeeding blank and sewn together to form a unit and piece of sewn fabric. This piece then is cut to form discrete satisfactory belt loops and the remaining pieces containing the overlapped ends are discarded since they are not usable as belt loops. If it were not necessary to overlap and sew the individual pieces, it is obvious that a greater amount of the fabric material could be utilized to form the belt loops, resulting in significant cost savings of fabric.
Further savings can be achieved through improved material utilization. In the art of cutting garment parts from the fabric, the patterns for the various parts are arranged on the cloth in such a way as to leave as little waste area between the patterns as possible. It is a well known principle of this art that multiple small patterns result in less waste than a single large pattern of the same area as the combined areas of the smaller patterns. Thus the smaller size of belt loop blank allows greater material utilization as compared to the larger blank. Stated in another way, the small patterns of the individual belt loops may be nested among the larger garment part patterns in such a way that the belt loop utilizes fabric which would otherwise be wasted. Therefore, if the fabric blanks could be cut to the exact width and length needed to form a completed belt loop and a machine designed to use such blanks, significant cost savings of material could be realized.
The alternative process for forming belt loops from a roll of fabric material is even more undesirable than the above-described process. This alternative requires the use of virgin fabric rather than permitting the use of small patterns of fabric nested among larger patterns, and is much more expensive since it results in even greater fabric waste.
Prior attempts to utilize fabric pieces having an exact length and width suitable for folding and sewing into individual belt loops have not been successful because no suitable means has been provided for safely and consistently automatically feeding, positioning, aligning, and spacing the discrete, exact length and width fabric pieces for subsequent folding and sewing.
In such a device, I have found that it is preferable for the fabric piece to be positioned so that the longitudinal edges of the piece can be overlapped along its entire length to present one rather than two edges to be stitched or sewn. Thus, when the leading edge of the fabric piece is not properly aligned with the folder, the desired overlapping of the longitudinal edges is not attained. Furthermore, when the fabric piece is not properly centered with respect to the folder and/or sewing apparatus, the exposed overlapped longitudinal edge of the folded piece will not be centered properly for subsequent sewing. In either event, when the folded piece is subsequently sewn, the exposed overlapped edge will not be stitched across the exposed edge and the free unsewn edge can become unravelled during use.
Further, the fabric pieces must be automatically spaced and not overlapped.
Accordingly, it would be highly desirable to provide a means for forming belt loops from fabric material which does not require having a length greater than that of normal belt loops, and which does not require that the pieces be overlapped prior to being sewn. Such a means would maximize fabric utilization and result in significant cost savings. However, such an apparatus should meet the alignment and spacing criteria set out above.